Was that the reason for the location of the clinic in Topeka,
because of the Veterans...

Lasker:

I don't think it had anything to do with that. I think
they just happened to be living in Topeka and they were men who
happened to become interested in psychiatry when they were at
Harvard.

Now, strangely enough, since the advent of the drugs, the
tranquilizing drugs and the antidepressants, unless they've
changed in the last year, the Menninger took a very dim view
of the use of drugs and were terribly upset because they thought
this was in some way an insult to the whole field of psychoanalysis
instead of realizing it was an adjunct and that you could get
people who were psychotic out of their psychoses and would
make them approachable be analysis. They really took a dim
view of the whole business of drugs. I'm sad to say this, but
it really was so, and I fear it is still so.

Q:

What role did you actually play as a trustee?

Lasker:

Well, I gave some small amounts of money in the
beginning and tried to involve them and did get Will Menninger
on the Council of the Mental Health Institute, and always urged
them to ask for money from the National Mental Health
Institute. Somehow or other they didn't seem to understand
that Federal funds were our own money in another pocket in the
United States, and they tended to disdain Federal funds, even